Deputy Shot By Clements Murder Suspect: ‘It’ll Take More Than That To Kill Me’

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DENVER (CBS4) – The deputy who made the traffic stop of the man suspected of murdering Colorado Executive Director of the Department of Corrections Tom Clements talked for the first time about why he pulled the car over in the first place.

Montague County Deputy James Boyd said he pulls over the most amount of cars for his department each month, but writes the least amount of tickets. It’s his job to look for anything moving along the highways that shouldn’t be there and investigate.

Boyd was patrolling on U.S. 287, which runs from Colorado into Dallas when he noticed a car with Colorado tags, which isn’t an uncommon sight on that stretch of road. The 27-year-old deputy said something did not seem right. He had a gut feeling and then pulled the car over that deputies say Evan Ebel was driving. When the deputy approached the passenger side, he noticed a broken tail light and then saw the gun. He was shot three times and blacked out.

“At that point in time I remember seeing the gun shoot off a number amount of times and I could see the cartridge just fly out,” Boyd said. “Yes, I’ve got a scar on my head, but I’m still up and moving. It’s going to take more than that to kill me.

“If I wouldn’t have done it, there was an officer 5 to 10 miles up from me who would have probably stopped him as well … he was actually a few inches shorter than me. He most likely would have died. I just got lucky that I was the perfect height and weight, and it all boiled down to luck.”

Boyd said it simply wasn’t his time to go. In hindsight, he said he would have called for backup before approaching the car and will be more vigilant observing a car’s action before he pulls them over.